MLL Rookie Report: Impending All Star Break Edition

The league has one more week of games before the All Star break, a rest many rookies may relish as their seasons have extended all the way back to those cold late-January/early-February practices. Only one rookie earned a spot on the All Star roster, playing for the Young Guns squad, Long Island's Matt Gibson. The former Yale attackman has been a picture of consistency, putting up seven goals and nine assists in four games. Averaging four points a tilt is no easy feat, especially for a rookie. Gibson revitalized the Lizards' offense. The team has been on a four-game winning streak ever since he came on board. Packaged onto the John Grant Jr. trade that sent Gibson's draftee rights from Chesapeake to Long Island, Gibson is proof that in a league with so much obvious talent, it is often the diamonds in the rough that can make the biggest impact. Below we look at the impact rookies are making around the league.

BOSTON (5-2)

The marquee match up of the weekend pits the Cannons against the league-leading Chesapeake Bayhawks in Annapolis on Saturday night. Two teams that rely mostly on veterans leave little room for rookies, but the Cannons will add one new face to the line up for the big game.

“Chris [Boland] is going to play,” coach Steve Duffy said of the former Hopkinsattackman who was Boston's first pick in the draft, fifteenth overall. Boland had come out to practice last week and “I liked what we saw. How he moves, how he plays with our guys, [he] has a strong understanding of what's going to happen on the field. He just kind of fit right in; it was kind of nice.”

Duffy said Boland will likely swing between attack and midfield depending on what personnel groups work better, or where he seems to fit better. “We'll see how the game flows,” Duffy said.

CHARLOTTE (1-6)

The losing persisted for the Hounds as they fell 16-8 to Boston last week. The offensive struggles for Charlotte are reflected in the performance of their rookies who all struggled to score.

Mark Manos backed up Adam Ghitelman in cage, but did not see the field in the loss. Justin Turri only mustered one shot and two groundballs in the effort. Newly acquired SSDMGerry Reilly also ripped one shot and grabbed one grounder in his role. Player Pool acquisition Cameron Lao-Gosneyof Lehigh helped flesh out the midfield, even if he didn't make a dent in the scorer's book.

“I liked him a lot; [he's] very athletic,” coach Mike Cerino said of Lao-Gosney. “It's tough throwing those guys to the wolves right away, and getting them out there, but that's what we wanted to do. He's someone that over the course of the season, we'll figure out ways to work him into the line up...He's a nice addition to our roster.”

Generally, Cerino likes what his team is building towards, even if immediate success is still out of their grasps. The idea as an expansion franchise was to bring in pillar veterans like Matt Danowski, Stephen Berger and Joe Cinosky and build around them with youth. Unfortunately when you play so many first and second year guys, and when you struggle with possessions like the Hounds have, the growing pains can linger a little longer than you'd like.

CHESAPEAKE (6-1)

The league leaders have been getting it done rotating through their core group of veterans and consistently plugging in two new faces, Brent Adams and Matt Mackrides.

Adams contributed another tough, grinding effort in what turned out to be a nail biter against Hamilton, taking two shots in transition, and generally embracing the nastier tone the game took at SSDM.

Mackrides continued his hot hand, registering another goal to continue his scoring streak of three games. Mackrides looks scrappy on the field. Despite the size differential he yields in most match ups, he is a quick dodger with good vision and a nose for the goal. After playing mostly attack at Penn State, he's been able to flex into the two-way middie role of the MLL pretty well.

Princeton keeper Tyler Fiorito dressed in a Bayhawks' polo and was present on the sidelines against Hamilton, but he did not play. Coach Dave Cottle has alluded to Fiorito coming to practice and potentially getting some playing time, but Cottle made no mention of Fiorito taking that step in the coming week.

DENVER (5-2)

The Outlaws pulled out another victory at home last week relying largely on the 'Brendan Mundorf Show,' but coach Jim Stagnitta is leaning on his rookies to step up and contribute more to the offense after a lack luster performance that saw Drew Snider as the only recent grad to tally a point – his third-straight one-goal game.

With Mundorf shining as usual, Stagnitta looked to challenge Denver rookie Mark Matthews to step up as the season goes on. After exploding with four goals and two assists in his debut, Matthews missed the next game for his graduation, likely the first two-week break from the game he's taken in five years, Stagnitta joked. Coming back from the reveries of graduation left Matthews a little flat for the game against Rochester, but Stagnitta said the big Canadian admitted his effort was one of the worst of his career and will aim to clean it up going forward.

“Mark does take some pressure off Mundi because he's a tough guy to just leave, he's so good off ball,” Stagnitta said, highlighting situations where Mundorf and Matthews kind of overload a side and force defenses into tough decisions. Stagnitta confirmed Matthews and Virginia's Colin Briggs will both be with the team on Long Island Saturday, but after his own Cascade Rookie of the Week performance two weeks ago, Chris Bocklet will not be in the line up, likely yielding his spot to Jordan McBride.

“There's a science to it” Stagnitta said of trying to balance the rookies and veterans in the line up. Depth can become a double-edged sword as trying to use a lot of players limits the amount of consistency and chemistry the team can cultivate. “The level of energy and excitement that [the rookies] brought to the team was exactly what we thought it would be, and the impact it's had on the older guys has been terrific, so from a planning standpoint and actually looking at it from a couple months prior to the season, we accomplished what we had hoped to.”

HAMILTON (2-4)

Allowing 16 goals in three quarters doesn't necessarily speak of a strong defensive effort, but during the Nationals' game against Chesapeake, you could almost see defenders Matt Lovejoy and Chad Wiedmaier mature over 60 minutes. Tasked with covering the big, physical and savvy attack unit of Chesapeake (often paired against John Grant Jr. and Drew Westervelt), Lovejoy and Wiedmaier spearheaded a defensive effort that saw the Nationals blank the Bayhawks for the final 15 minutes as the team fought to a 16-15 loss from eight goals down.

“Matt's tough,” coach Regy Thorpe said of his young defenders. “Coach [Dom] Starsia emailed me there once they got done with their season saying the kid's awesome, he's a pit bull...

“Chad's been great too; he made a huge play for us out of the time out last week,” Thorpe said, alluding to a check that popped a ball loose and resulted in a goal rushing the other way. Having two guys that can apply pressure defensively helps take the onus off LSM-extraordinaireBrodie Merrill, allowing him to be more of a ballhawk than an on ball defender.

“We're excited with both Chad and Matt,” Thorpe said. “Certainly they're getting more familiar and getting better. They've only played a couple of games, so we're looking forward to them getting better each game.”

LONG ISLAND (4-2)

The young Lizards kept their winning role going, defeating Ohio 16-12 in a potential trap game after a huge win against Boston two weeks ago. This time around it was Tom Palasek's turn to shine, knotching four goals in the victory to earn Cascade Rookie of the Week honors.

“We got some of our college kids in,” said coach Joe Spallina, “...they've caught on quicker than we probably anticipated. [Matt Gibson] since he put our jersey on, I think our offense has been different. The unit of him, Ryan Young and Tommy Palasek, those are all young, water bug type guys.

“I think the biggest thing is, we were able to get our guys in, and guys that compliment each other,” Spallina said. “When Matt Gibson got in, all of a sudden Ryan Young's game jumped up, and with that came Tommy Palasek's game kind of jumped up a knotch, those three guys were on the same page.”

The trio of young Long Island natives is now starting to open up parts of the field for the Lizards' midfielders to attack. Young guns also played a key role in reshaping the defense.

By trading for Tim Henderson and CJ Costabile, in separate deals, the Lizards sured up their LSM position, allowing Brian Karalunas to bump down to close where he has helped solidify that unit, providing a defenseman who can match feet at X, Spallina said.

Spallina joked that they had No. 1 draft pick Rob Pannell come and see the win in Boston, hoping it would sway him to come join the team and forego his last year of collegiate eligibility (assuming he is granted another year by the NCAA and Ivy League). But the Lizards retain rights to Pannell, allowing them to continue to build with youth next year.

“When you look at our young core, you can get caught up looking ahead, and obviously this product that we've been able to put together over the last five or six months is built to last,” Spallina said, “and a guy like Rob Pannell, and whomever we take in our draft pick, which hopefully is at the end of the first round, is only going to help solidify our team and make it stronger with the young core we have.”

OHIO (1-5)

The Machine put forth one of their best performances of the season while also debuting their coveted No. 2 draft choice, Steele Stanwick, in a 16-12 loss to Long Island last Saturday. All told, four rookies saw the field for Ohio, with Rob Rotanz and Bobby Eillers running midfield and getting some looks and Johns Hopkins' Marshal Burkhart (0,1) and Stanwick (2,1) contributing points in the loss.

“They both played great, I was happy for them,” coach Ted Garber said of his two players that made their premieres. “Steele didn't practice at all Friday...He came in Saturday, and he had about an hour walk through, and he was awesome, did everything we thought he would do. And Burkhart, the same thing.”

Garber said he ran into Dave Pietramala in an airport, and the Hopkins coach spoke of how tough Burkhart is and what a team player he is.

“He's going to be a really great player in this league, and so is Steele, those guys are awesome together, and all our rookies have been,” Garber said. “And the fun thing for me is watching these guys in the locker room interact. Watching guys from Hopkins and Syracuse getting along, from Duke and Maryland, it's awesome. It's a really good group...

“I told the guys we're going to be like the Beatles, when they started out they were awful and no one wanted to watch them play,” Garber said in a kind of tongue-in-check analogy, “and look where they ended up. So we've got our drummer in place, they moved Ringo Starr to drummer, now we've got Stanwick as our drummer, so we're ready to go.”

ROCHESTER (2-4)

Rochester had a tough go of it in Denver, succumbing to the Outlaws 16-12. As coach Tim Soudan alluded to in the league's weekly conference call, part of the problem is a lack of offensive consistency and production, particularly out of the midfield. While the Rattlers have some good rookies grinding between the lines, they lack many explosive midfield dodgers, and their young guns don't necessarily fill that role.

Roy Lang continued to look pretty athletic, scoring the only points by a rookie with his solo goal. Kevin Drew and Will Koshansky also got into the midfield mix. Mike Manley continued to exude the nasty style Rochester was looking for, earning himself 60 seconds in the penalty box. While those four have consistently received playing time, it is unlikely more rookies will join the fray as the Rattlers look to find more scoring options, particularly in the midfield.